Healing on demand?

The other day I was watching a TV preacher.  You say, “That was your first mistake.”  Well, there’s sadly a lot of truth to that observation.  Anyway, he was talking about healing.  He said that too many Christians today use the phrase “It wasn’t God’s will to heal” as a cop-out answer.  For all intents and purposes, he was mocking Christians who didn’t believe that God always heals people, without any exceptions, from their physical maladies.  He was essentially speaking of what is commonly referred to as “healing on demand”.  As you might have guessed, I strongly disagree with this TV preacher.

Let me begin by stating this: with all of my heart, I believe that God has the power to heal anyone from their debilitating sickness.  God is all-powerful.  I’m actually an example of how God can heal; I’ve experienced His healing touch on more than one occasion in my life.  So don’t get the idea that I’m proposing that God is weak or somehow incapable of healing.  I don’t believe that at all.  In fact, God can do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20; NKJV).  But this preacher is wrong to suggest that God will always heal everyone, no matter what.  Such a claim makes this preacher sound like he believes God is more like a subservient genie in a bottle that exists solely to give you whatever you desire.  This is not the God of the Bible.

The Apostle Paul was an amazing man of God.  Acts 19:12 says that if people simply touched the handkerchiefs that Paul had touched they were healed of their diseases (by the way, for those of you who have a phobia of germs, verse 11 says that these miracles were “unusual”; so you don’t have to touch other peoples handkerchiefs today).  However, despite this, Paul states in 2 Corinthians 12 that he received a “thorn in the flesh”.  We don’t know exactly what this thorn was because Paul didn’t specify.  But the speculations abound anyway.  Many believe it was some sort of physical issue.  I’ve heard a compelling case for Paul’s “thorn” being very poor eyesight, for example.

Whatever Paul’s thorn in the flesh was is largely immaterial, the point is Paul wrote that he prayed three times that this thorn would depart from him, but God said no.  Think of that.  God declined to remove Paul’s thorn from him.  Instead God communicated to Paul that He wanted to teach him that God’s strength is best shown in human weakness.  “Therefore,” Paul concludes, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

In Matthew 6 Jesus taught, “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name.  Your Kingdom come.  Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” (verses 9-10; italics mine for emphasis).  James said not to go around boasting about what you are going to do, rather you should say that this event will happen only if it’s God's will (James 4:13-15).  1 John 5:14 says, “And this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.”  Contrary to the opinion of the TV preacher I began with, it’s not a “cop-out answer” to bring up God’s will in the area of healing (or any other area); it is right and appropriate to do so.

I don’t know why God heals some and not others, but it’s an undeniable fact.  Proverbs 3:5 is easy to quote but harder to live; it reads, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.”  Our finite understanding says, “God will heal me from my physical affliction.”  But God is God; we are not.  We have to trust Him in these matters, and to demand that God heal isn’t trusting in Him.  You see, we can’t put God in a box.  We can’t manage, control, or manipulate God.  The Bible says, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out” (Romans 11:33)!  Amen belongs here.

Kevin